(2) Image-driven system biology: Intra-cellular transport and diffusion by finite-element-analysis: The transport process is crucial for the cells to propagate intracellular signals induced by extracellular stimuli. We develop finite-element-based methods for the simulation and analysis of molecular diffusion and transport in live cells. Our finite-element-based diffusion analysis method only requires two consecutive images to estimate a diffusion coefficient, with a great flexibility in resolving complex cellular geometry. Therefore, this can allow the estimation of a spatiotemporal map of diffusion coefficient with high subcellular resolution. Indeed, our results shows a perfect match between the experimental results and the finite element based analysis.
|